“This is supply,” he says.
“Guns?” I ask.
“Guns,” he says. “And other things.”
I raise a brow. “Other things.”
He glances sidelong at me. “We move what needs moving. Not children. Not bodies. Not girls.Ever. You have my word on that.”
Something loosens in my chest that I didn’t know was tight.
“And if someone tries to use our lanes for that,” Wraith adds from across the floor without even turning, “we drown them in the river and invoice the people who sent them.”
Vale calls cheerfully from somewhere behind a stack of crates, “Withinterest.”
The casualness of it shouldn’t make me feel safe. It does. “You’re showing me all this because you trust me?” I ask.
“No,” Rook says mildly. “I’m showing you because it’s yours now, and I don’t have the luxury of you being ignorant. Ignorance gets queens killed.”
My mouth goes dry. “You have to stop calling me that in public.”
“I will,” he says.
“Promise?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
Something stupid and warm curls low in my stomach. I hate that. I also don’t.
“You understand,” he says quietly, “what this means.”
I swallow. “That if I leave, you kill me?”
His gaze sharpens. “No,” he says, and there’s actual offense in it. “That if you leave, we go towarto get you back.”
My heart stutters. He means it. Every fucking word. Caelum Voss, who does not lie, who does not bluff, who does not threaten unless he’s already decided how he’ll execute it.
He would. They all would. And for one, terrifying, dizzying second, I don’t feel trapped.
I feelprotected.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. I can practically hear the version of myself from three weeks ago screaming in my head about leverage and loyalty and who you can and cannot afford to trust.
But that version of me didn’t know what I knownow.
That version of me didn’t know Owen was clean. Thought MI6 would protect me. That version still thought getting out was the victory.
Now I know better.
Getting out means being alone again. Getting out means going back to not being seen unless I was useful, not being heard unless I was obedient, not being touched unless someone wanted something in return.
Here, I amnotinvisible. Here, I am not quiet. Here, I am not handled. Here, I am watched like Imatter.
I stand there in the middle of their warehouse — their heart, their money, their leverage, their liability — and realize something that settles so deep in me I feel it change the way I’m standing.
I don’t actually want to run.
Not anymore. Not from them. Or this. Not from any of it.
